FIVE QUESTIONS
At Lucy's Grill, it's the portion sizes that impress

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Martha Wash, whose powerhouse voice can be heard on the disco tune "It's Raining Men," will sing at Gay Pride 2005 at McCoy Pavilion. Martha Wash at Gay Pride 2005 5 p.m. Saturday $5 entry for Gay Pride 2005 Festival McCoy Pavilion, Ala Moana Beach Park 951-7000, thecenterhawaii.org Gay Pride 2005 schedule Today: Splash beach party, 5-9 p.m., $35 presale, $45 at door, McCoy Pavilion. Food, entertainment, dancing, and Martha Wash meet-and-greet (7-8 p.m.) Saturday: Gay Pride 2005 Parade, 9:30-11 a.m., from Magic Island to Kapi'olani Park Gay Pride 2005 Festival, noon-9 p.m., $5, McCoy Pavilion. Entertainment and workshops all day. Off-site parking and shuttle to McCoy Pavilion from Kaka'ako Waterfront Park every 20 minutes

As one half of The Weather Girls (the other half was the late Izora Armstead), Wash and her rich, enormous voice were all over the campy disco anthem "It's Raining Men." Wash's was also the booming — and uncredited — lead female vox blasting out of hits by early 1990s dance acts C&C Music Factory ("Gonna Make You Sweat/Everybody Dance Now"), Black Box ("Everybody Everybody") and Seduction ("You're My One And Only/True Love").

Wash famously sued the record labels involved for using her vocals without crediting her, and for replacing her plus-size figure with svelte lip-synching models in the videos. She won every case. But the subject is one Wash remains uncomfortable discussing.

Wash keeps most busy these days performing at pride festivals like this weekend's Gay Pride 2005 at McCoy Pavilion, and slowly putting together a new CD on her own label. A single from the disc, "You Lift Me Up," hit the Billboard dance/club play chart top five in February.

Wash called us from her Long Island, N.Y., home for Five Questions.

Q. The gay and lesbian community has embraced your music as far back as your early years performing with famously out-and-proud Sylvester in the 1970s. Were you surprised by all the love?

A. No, not really. It was really just a progression from singing with him, and then Izora (Armstead) and I going out on our own as Two Tons of Fun and then The Weather Girls. ... And they've been there through the ups and the downs and all of that. They're my No. 1 audience.

Q. Sylvester was quite a character in his day. What was it like working with him?

A. Crazy, but fun. He was good to work with. He didn't want anybody to tell him what he couldn't do, try to pigeonhole him or things like that. At the time, it was as if the record company really didn't know what to do with him.

... (Working with him) is where I got my education — being before an audience and trying to deliver a song that people can feel.

Q. "It's Raining Men" has evolved into a post-disco-era classic. It's still played on radio and used in television series and movies. How did you and Izora get hooked up with it?

A. We were in Los Angeles with Paul Jabara, who wrote the song (with a pre-David Letterman sidekick Paul Shaffer). He had been trying to get somebody to do the song. He was saying that Donna Summer had turned it down, Diana Ross had turned it down, Barbra Streisand had turned it down. They wouldn't touch it.

He begged us to record the song. And we were laughing at it and saying, "Yeah, Paul, right!" And he was, like, "No, no, no, no. I really want you to pleeeease record this song."

We recorded it in less than an hour and a half and just walked out of the studio saying, "OK, Paul. We did it. Fine. Whatever." and just went on about our business. But he shopped it to the clubs, where it became a hit long before radio picked it up.

It was one of those campy tunes that everybody could have fun with. ... I'll never get away from it.

Q. You must still be approached by musicians who give you props for taking care of business, so to speak, when you sued all of those record labels for essentially stealing your musical identity.

A. Yeah, I have had that happen. And that's a nice thing to know. When all that stuff started happening, I did get props from people saying, "I'm glad you did what you did," because, hey, the record business is a really strange, really strange business. And you have to look out for yourself because other people won't.

Q. Where'd you get the voice, Martha? Are you the only one in your family that has it?

A. It seems like it, yeah. (Laughs.) My mother loved to sing. And she sang in the church choir. So when my godmother told her that I was singing in the car ... at 2 or 3 years old, my mother really helped me as far as teaching me how to sing and (getting me to) listen to gospel music and things like that growing up.

That, and I've always just loved to sing.

Reach Derek Paiva at 525-8005 or dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.